The invention relates to improvements in plants for the making of commodities which contain tobacco and/or are used in conjunction with tobacco containing products. More particularly, the invention relates to improvements in plants for the making of plain or filter cigarettes, cigars or cigarillos, filter rod sections and/or other commodities which are turned out by the tobacco processing industry. Still more particularly, the invention relates to improvements in means for preventing overheating of certain components of or entire units which are used to produce and/or process various commodities in the plants of the tobacco processing industry.
It is often necessary to employ an air conditioned enclosure (e.g., a building or a portion of a building) in a plant which is used for the making of rod-shaped and/or other products of the tobacco processing industry. For example, it is often necessary to install a production line including one or more units such as cigarette makers, filter tipping machines, packing machines, cellophaning machines, carton filling machines and carton baling machines in an air conditioned hall in order to ensure that the temperature, the moisture content and/or other characteristics of conditioned air will remain within an optimum range. On the other hand, at least some such units include components, subassemblies or aggregates which generate substantial amounts of heat. The heat must be removed in order to avoid overheating of tobacco particles and/or other constituents of commodities which are being turned out in the plants of the tobacco processing industry. The heat generating components, subassemblies or aggregates of production units can constitute fans, blowers, motors, switch cabinets, conveyors, transmissions, housings, casings and/or others.
If a component which generates substantial amounts of heat, while the respective production unit is in actual use, is permitted to dissipate heat directly into the air conditioned enclosure for such unit, the air conditioning system must be adjusted continuously or at frequent intervals, either automatically or by hand, and the energy losses are very pronounced. The situation is aggravated if the plant contains modern high-speed production units which can turn out inordinately large numbers of tobacco products per unit of time. For example, a modern cigarette maker can turn out well in excess of 10,000 cigarettes per minute. The commodities, subassemblies and/or other aggregates which generate substantial amounts of heat when a production line containing one or more high-speed machines is in actual use can be cooled only with the expenditure of large amounts of energy because such cooling involves withdrawal of heat from the interior of the enclosure which contains the production unit or units in question. As a rule, the enclosure will contain a large number of production units each of which includes at least one heat generating component, subassembly or aggregate.